Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:35–49
For years, I was a summer camp counselor. Now there were many fun parts to my job—silly camp songs, leading crafts, helping at the rock wall, and evening campfires—but my favorite part of the job was the conversations I would have with my campers. Some of the best conversations happened before bed during our night devotions. One night the conversation of heaven came up and we dreamed what heaven would be like. One girl was sure there would be shopping in heaven but another asked, “If in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were naked, and heaven is a return to the garden, will we all be naked in heaven?” Another camper quickly responded, “Wait a minute! If we are going to be naked in heaven, then I do not want to go there!” We tried to explain to her that whatever we wear or don’t wear in heaven, it won’t matter, we’ll be too focused on worshipping God to really notice what we are wearing. But she wouldn’t hear it. If we were going to be naked in heaven, she did not want to be there.
A similar question was being debated in the church in Corinth. People were wondering what our resurrected bodies would be like, and some were caught up in the mystery of how decayed bodies could be raised from the dead. Caught up in the “eww” factor, they missed the glory of resurrection. It seems that some of them were even saying they weren’t sure they wanted to be a part of this resurrection if it meant being in a decayed, zombie-like body. Similar to my camper, if they were going to have zombie bodies in the new age, they weren’t sure they wanted to be there.
Now, Paul didn’t want to be a part of any of that nonsense. He called them fools and did his best to explain to them what he understood to be the transformative power of the resurrection of the dead that will happen when Jesus returns.
You see, resurrection is key to Paul’s faith. Just before this, Paul says if you don’t believe in the resurrection, then he thinks your faith is worthless. Paul calls Jesus the new Adam. Adam, the first human, was made of the dust of the earth and was the first to experience death. Jesus came to be the new Adam, resetting and conquering the effects of sin in this world. Just as Adam was the first human who died and all other humans that lived following Adam also have died. Jesus, the new Adam, is the first human to experience resurrection, and in time, all will experience resurrection alongside Jesus Christ.
Okay, Paul. Resurrection sounds great, but what does it look like? That’s what the Corinthians wanted to know. And that is a question that has been debated and dreamed about for thousands of years. But the truth is we won’t really know what resurrection will look like until we experience it in God’s time but we can trust that it will be good.
As I read through today’s text, a different debate stood out to me. A debate that Paul never meant to start with his words. The debate over the importance of the spirit versus the unimportance of the body. Too many people have misread Paul’s words and decided that the physical body is lesser than the spirit. Some have gone farther and said that the physical body, the flesh, is evil, only our spirit can be good. In the first centuries of Christianity this idea was called Gnostic dualism and it was condemned as heresy, as being against the gospel. Unfortunately, this idea did not end with the condemnation of Gnosticism. Dualism, the belief that the body, the physical, is bad and only the soul is good, was popular in ancient philosophy and remains influential in our culture today.
People misread Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 15 and say that Paul was a dualist. It’s easy enough to misread. Paul describes the physical body as perishable, dishonoring, weak, and of dust. In verse 50 he goes on to say that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Not great words to affirm the goodness of the body, I will admit. Meanwhile, the spiritual body sounds wonderful as Paul describes it to be imperishable, glorious, powerful, and of heaven. These contrasts, along with other things Paul says about the flesh elsewhere, have led people to believe that the physical body is insignificant. All that matters is the spirit, and we need to do our best to separate ourselves from the physical in order to achieve enlightenment and connection with God. People have taken this to extremes, eating just enough food to survive and going on extended fasts to try and become closer to God.
But this is a misreading of Paul. Paul was arguing the importance of bodily resurrection. A resurrection not just of the spirit, but of the body. Our bodies are essential for resurrection. Paul emphasizes that we won’t be disembodied spirits, we will be in resurrected bodies, just as Jesus was. Now, the resurrected body will look and act differently from our current physical bodies, just as a seed looks different from the plant it becomes, but Paul says both our current bodies and our future bodies have their own glory.
Our passage ends with Paul saying, “Just as we have borne the image of the one of dust, we will also bear the image of the one of heaven.” This language of “bearing the image” comes from the creation stories. Adam, the firstborn made of dust, was created in the image of God, as was every human since then. God created humankind in God’s image and called humans very good. Yes, sin entered the world and led to separation from God and imperfections, but that did not erase the image of God and the goodness from humans. Paul was a scholar who picked his words carefully. After contrasting our current physical bodies with our future resurrected bodies, he refers back to the creation story. So while we are like Adam in our sinfulness and death, we are also like Adam in being made in the image of God. Our resurrected bodies will be glorious, imperishable, and powerful, but our current physical bodies also matter, especially as they bear the image of God, our creator. So as we look forward to our resurrected bodies, we can still affirm the goodness of our physical bodies. Our current bodies have worth.
As Christians, we need to say no to the dualist idea that pervades our culture that our bodies don’t matter or that our bodies only matter if they look a certain way, and that our bodies are simply objects to judge. Western culture has taught us to be disembodied, to try and separate our spirit from our body, with the goal to leave the body or to control the body enough, so the spirit can experience truth and freedom. As I describe disembodiment, it’s easy to say I do not follow those ideas, but they are all around us. This is what disembodiment looks like practically.
- Disembodiment is diet culture, telling us our bodies should look a certain way—skinny—that skinny equals healthy and happy, and that through their program, you can get skinny and thus be happier. We are told the body is something to judge, control and sculpt. We are taught to ignore our hunger and thirst cues and instead follow written serving sizes and dietary restrictions.
- Disembodiment looks like employers providing little or no paid sick leave, implicitly telling employees that the condition of their bodies doesn’t matter, all that matters is what they produce. It’s the myth that adults shouldn’t get sick and commercials offering medications to cover up all symptoms so your day can be just like it normally is.
- Disembodiment is pushing through each day with the help of multiple caffeinated beverages timed to fight fatigue, ignoring bodily cues that you need rest and are sleep deprived. It’s staying up late watching TV when you know you need to go to bed.
- Disembodiment is becoming so busy you forget to go or decide you don’t have time to use the restroom.
- It’s ignoring your body’s signs that something is wrong and not seeking help until you need to go to the ER.
- It’s getting home and barely remembering your drive there.
This is not how God created us to live! We aren’t spirits trapped in bodies of muscles and bones. Our bodies matter too! We experience life through our bodies. Our spirit and our bodies are intimately connected. In Greek, the word spirit comes from the same word as breath, and we all know that without breath, our bodies cannot live. As hard as we may try, our bodies and our spirit cannot be separated. We can only experience the fullness of life when our mind and body are connected and attuned towards one another. This is called embodiment.
Dr. Hillary McBride is a registered psychologist, a counselor, and a Christian who specializes in embodiment. In her book, The Wisdom of Your Body, she says, “Embodiment is a way to heal the mind-body divide we experience within ourselves and, more systematically, within Western cultures. To do so we need to understand the self as a body. Our body and our personhood are so intimately connected they can never be separated. We are not just a mind, or brain, carried around by a meat-puppet of flesh and bones. Embodiment is a kind of re-membering of who we really are. It is a coming home, a remembering of our wholeness, and a reunion with the fullness of ourselves.”
As Christians, embodiment is remembering and affirming the goodness of our body and that we are made in the image of God. It’s listening to my body and honoring what she has to say. Embodiment is living and enjoying life, while being fully present in my body, noticing but not judging the feelings and sensations that arise as I move through my day and interact with the world. It’s noticing the strength, naming the goodness, honoring the needs, and marveling at the intricacies of my body.
If you’re unsure about this practice of embodiment and wonder if this is just a trendy word and not sound theology, let’s look at Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate practitioner of embodiment. God becoming flesh. God choosing to experience life in a human body, with its goodness and its limitations. God would not enter into a body if they were bad and worthless. Rather, God becoming human affirms the goodness and value of the human body. Jesus physically touched those he healed, he hugged children and ate meals around tables with his friends. He got tired and needed sleep. He went to quiet places to be by himself and he spoke to large crowds. And Jesus did all of this in a human body. At the Last Supper, Jesus asks us not to remember his spirit, but his body and blood as we take communion. And Jesus was resurrected in a body and so will we. Paul was passionate about bodily resurrection. Perhaps because he knew there is something special, unique, even sacred about the experience of living in a body. We experience our life most fully when we honor our bodies.
After being taught our whole lives to try and separate our bodies and spirits, to ignore the needs and messages of our bodies, it takes time and practice to experience embodied living.
Dr. McBride suggests three practices to help us return to ourselves, to practice embodiment. First, she says we should move our bodies. Movement is how our bodies process the world around us. While exercise tends to be out controlling our bodies or trying to shape and tone our bodies into a specific image, “movement is for joy alone.” Second, she encourages us to practice feeding ourselves, to listen to our hunger, thirst and fullness cues and to nourish our body based on our cues. Third, she says work to develop a relationship of trust with your body. Just like personal relationships take time to develop as you learn about one another and learn to trust each other, it will take time to learn to trust our body as good, especially since we have received opposing messages our whole lives, but it can be done.
Jesus came to show us how to live life abundantly, to its fullest, and he showed us how to do it in a body, telling us that our bodies are an essential part of an abundant life. We are made “of dust,” in the image of God but also weighed down by sin and death, but Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is here. Some scholars argue that a more accurate translation of verse 49 is not “we will also bear the image of the one of heaven” but “let us bear the image of the one of heaven.” “Let us”—something that can happen in this present moment. Jesus has come and has shown us what a glimpse of resurrected life looks like. Paul tells us to be imitators of Christ. We are made “of dust” but with the Lord’s help, we can already reflect the resurrected Christ and begin to bear the image of the one of heaven. So let’s practice embodiment. Let’s listen to and honor our bodies, finding ways to be fully present in them as we experience the abundant life Jesus came to give us.
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